Managing strategic responsibility in the MNC

An issue that confronts the top management of every multinational company is that of determining where in the organization basic strategy decisions should be made. The firm may concentrate responsibility for a broad range of strategic tasks at headquarters, or cede strategic responsibility to foreign affiliates. This paper argues that deriving an appropriate apportionment of strategic responsibility is largely a matter of recognizing the unique strategic imperatives imposed on the multinational firm by the conflicting requirements of integration within a global context, and responsiveness to local environments. For the firm whose businesses can benefit from world‐wide co‐ordination and standardization of manufacturing and product development, there is strong pressure to consolidate strategic responsibility at headquarters. For the firm whose businesses require attention to the idiosyncracies of national markets, the strategic autonomy of subsidiaries may be requisite for success. A variety of factors renders difficult a clear‐cut, one‐time identification of the strategic imperative facing a business. For example, even within a single business, certain functions respond to the logic of integration, whereas others require a posture of responsiveness. At times both imperatives exist at full strength within a single functional area. Often, in a multi‐business, multinational firm, different businesses are subject to different pressures for integration and responsiveness. It is shown that managing strategic responsibility in situations of such ambiguity forces the firm to look far beyond traditional structural mechanisms in order to enact an appropriate division of strategic responsibility between headquarters and affiliates.